Australia: Geoff Huegill, the comeback flyer of the year, is off on another watery adventure, one that drew this advice from a crew member: "... have a quiet Christmas Day and not eat too much and then when the race is on to take a big, deep breath, and just enjoy the experience." The race in question - the 628-nautical-mile Rolex Sydney to Hobart yacht race aboard Investec Loyal. "Skippy" is among several celebrities taking on the challenge to raise money for the Loyal Foundation. Cricketer Matthew Hayden and former Wallabies Phil Waugh and Phil Kearns will also make the voyage to experience new. Huegill's yacht will be skippered by Sean Langman, while 99 yachts in total will aim for glory on Boxing Day, a third of them making their maiden voyage south. What a sight that start will be, one surely fit to put wind in Skippy's sails.

Britain: Patrick Miley, father and coach of European and Commonwealth 400m medley champion Hannah Miley, has been named British Swimming Coaches Association coach of the year for 2010. Miley's 4min 33.09sec victory in Budapest ahead of world champion Katinka Hosszu (HUN) marked the swiftest effort in the world in 2010. Miley is currently spending a month in Perth, Western Australia, under the guidance of  coach Matt McGee. The other strong candidate  for the coach award was former winner Bill Furniss, whose key charge, double Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington claimed double gold in the 400m and 800m freestyle at the Commonwealth Games and the European 400m freestyle title. Adlington in currently spending several weeks Down Under under the guidance of coach Michael Bohl in Brisbane, training base of the likes of double Olympic medley champion Stephanie Rice, and 400m free Olympic and Asian Games champion Park Tae Hwan (KOR).

Italy: Federica Pellellegrini, world 200m and 400m free champion, will race only the 400m at the European short-course Championships that start in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, tomorrow. Coach Stefano Morini explained to Gazzetta dello Sport: "We are in preparations for the World Championships [25m] in December, we have done more resistance work of late. Fede is one of the few big names to honour a commitment" to supporting the LEN event, which has suffered this year in the wake of FINA's decision to move its winter world s/c showcase to a permanent December slot on a cluttered calendar.

Hungary: Daniel Gyurta, the world champion over 200m breaststroke, has signed a deal with arena that will take him through to 2014. The contract includes Gyurta in a team of swimmers backed by arena, among them Hungarian teammate, medley ace and triple Olympic silver medallist of 2008 Laszlo Cseh.

Sports politics: The USA Swimming Board of Directors has refused to back a proposal from the federation's International Relations Committee to call for a restructuring of FINA. The IRC had voted 14-6 to ask the federation to table a motion at FINA Congress that would have called for more coach and athlete involvement at all tiers of FINA, a body in which the balance of power is almost entirely held by sports politicians. The IRC proposal had the backing of many leading coaches in the US who believe that FINA puts money before athletes on too many key fronts. The only member of the US board with significant international experience that stretches from pool to governance and politics is coach Mike Lawrence, and SwimNews understands that he voted with the politicians to deny the wishes of his peers. One of those present at the meeting lamented that "it was perhaps our best opportunity in the last 25 years to make real change of the operation and culture of FINA". 

Also present at the board meeting in New York before the Golden Goggles Awards was Dick Shoulberg, a coach who has more reason than most to wish to see change in a culture that allowed a marathon race to proceed in conditions, both in terms of water temperatures and an apparent lack of adequate safety cover, that prompted warnings from swimmers, coaches and managers. Those warnings did not lead to any action being taken, neither by FINA nor organisers in Dubai that might have prevented the tragedy that unfolded on October 23. Shoulberg had known Fran Crippen since he was six years old. Investigations into the swimmer's death, the first ever by an athlete in FINA competition, are underway within FINA and independently in the US, under the chairmanship of Dick Pound, WADA and IOC leading light. 

Meanwhile, in the longer term, change within FINA may come about as the power balance in the federation shifts in 2013, when Dr Julio Maglione (URU) steps down as President after the one term of office he is committed too. It is widely believed that Europe may hold the balance of power. It is 26 years since the last European left office as FINA President, Ante Lambasa (YUG) the man who in 1980 to 1984 oversaw a key transition from a world in which amateur rules set the agenda to one in which big sums of money came FINA's way from television broadcast rights. Lambasa also went down in swimming history as the first head of a world titles organising committee, the inaugural championships held in Belgrade in 1973. Lambasa's time in high office - including the position of treasurer held from 1968 to 1980 - coincided with one of the darkest chapters in swimming history, namely the GDR's State Plan 14:25 that saw doping rule the waves. The last American to hold the FINA presidency was Robert Helmick (1984-88), whose career in sports politics came to a controversial end. Helmick's reign at the USOC and IOC ended abruptly in 1991 amid reports that he had accepted payments from organisations seeking Olympic contracts. His sudden resignation from the unsalaried post shook the USOC and sapped public confidence during a crucial fund-raising period, only five months before the 1992 Winter Games were due to begin in France. Reports fom the time claimed that Helmick received at least $275,000 in consulting fees over several years from clients such as Turner Broadcasting, the US Golf Federation and Saatchi & Saatchi advertising. Helmick admitted receiving the payments but insisted that he had done nothing wrong.

For the record, the 2010 USA Swimming Board:  Bruce Stratton; Mary Jo Swalley; Jeff Gudman; Jim Sheehan; David Berkoff; Tyler Storie; Tim Liebhold; Tom Hasz; John R. Morse; Paul Thompson (non-coach); Bill Schalz (coach); JoAnn Faucett (non-coach); Marci Callan (coach); Jay Thomas (non-coach); Shannon Gillespy (coach);  Robert Broyles (non-coach); Brandon Drawz (coach); Michael Lawrence; athletes - Patrick Dideum; Erin Popovich; Megan Ryther; Anthony Holman; Ex-officio: Jim Wood; Ron Van Pool; Dale Neuburger (FINA Bureau); Carol Zaleski (head of the FINA Technical swimming committee); Bill Maxson; Ted Haartz; Tim Welsh; Kalyn Keller; Aaron Peirsol; Neil Walker. The composition of that board is unlike anything you can find in the structures of FINA.